The Pacific spiny lumpsucker, an inefficient swimmer but a highly efficient suction cup. The pelvic fins have evolved into a strong suction disk on the belly, giving it the ability to anchor itself to substrates. Plate-like structures called "tubercles" provide defense against predators.

This yellow spotted river turtle from the Florida Museum of Natural History was collected in Colombia in 1957. It's likely it was exploited by the pet trade, as it was once common for people to drill holes in the marginal scutes of the shell to tether the turtle & stop it from wandering away (1/2)

Are you a student who wants to visit the NHMLA for your research? Do you advise or know a student who would benefit from visiting our collections? Well, there are three weeks left to apply for the NHMLA Student Collections Award. Help spread the word!

Just one week to get your abstracts in for A12 - "Digital Resilience: Immortalising biodiversity through 3D anatomical models"! You'll present alongside our keynote speaker @jaimiagray.bsky.social who will talk about how making CT data and derivatives FAIR can level the playing field for biologists.

Priority deadline (Feb 16) for this years Fish Class at Friday Harbor is coming up quick! Get your applications in for what will be an amazing summer filled with great science, people, and tools! Financial aid is available!! @cmdonatelli.bsky.social @fishguy.bsky.social @karlycohen.bsky.social

Want to do a postdoc at Friday Harbor Labs? We have two positions open. Apply by March 1st. I am happy to discuss potential projects with fish people. apply.interfolio.com/180092 🧪

This Thursday's IOB cover spotlight is on The Diffusion Diaries: Diffusible Iodine-Based Contrast-Enhanced Computed #Tomography for #Vertebrate Natural History #Specimens @jaimiagray.bsky.social Gray , et al doi.org/10.1093/iob/... #morphology #science #biology #vertebrates

New paper out in @devdynamics.bsky.social on lizard lung development! Project co-led w/ Kaleb Hill and also w/ @tonygamble.bsky.social @shylonatasha.bsky.social @aussiebiologist.bsky.social @bezbez.bsky.social @celestemnelson.bsky.social anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Excited to be a co-author on this one in @currentbiology.bsky.social! @tillramm.bsky.social did a fantastic job bringing it all together. A mountain dragon was the *very first* CT scan I ever worked on as an undergraduate, so it holds a special place in my ❤️

When you visit Friday Harbor Labs, @fishguy.bsky.social always has cool fish to discuss 🐟 Last week we pondered the horned searobin (Bellator militaris), & what its spines could be for. CT scan available on MorphoSource for you to explore www.morphosource.org/media/000027546 Images made in 3D Slicer

Just wrapped up a week of SlicerMorph/MorphoDepot/MorphoCloud work with @jaimiagray.bsky.social, @cmdonatelli.bsky.social and a great team of folks. This is Enophrys taurina with a damaged preopercular spine. Fighting or defense? 🧪🐡

"What makes us human, I think, is an ability to ask questions, a consequence of our sophisticated spoken language" - J. Goodall. This #oVertTCN chimpanzee CT scan is available for exploration on MorphoSource: www.morphosource.org/concern/medi...

Meet the newest species of Brazilian flea-toad 🐸 Brachycephalus nanicus! 🐸 B. nanicus is <1cm long & dwells under the leaf litter in the cloud forests of Serro do Mar, southeastern Brazil I CT scanned this specimen for the osteological description Out today in Zootaxa: mapress.com/zt/article/v...

Hey folks out there who ❤️ to #CTscan things and ❤️ museums! the @amnh.org is hiring a Laboratory Manager for their Microscopy and Imaging Facility, a.k.a. the CT lab 🧪 careers.amnh.org/postings/4550

Hey it's #WorldLizardDay 🦎 Here's one of my faves & one I saw *a lot* of growing up in rural Australia. Tiliqua rugosa has many common names, but where I'm from we call them "sleepy lizard" or "stumpy tail". Download the #oVertTCN CT scan from MorphoSource here: www.morphosource.org/concern/medi...

Climbing into my #ColorsOfSkullAnatomy collection: a veiled chameleon (Chamaeleo calyptratus) 🦎 this large male was getting up there in age when he was collected, as shown by his worn down teeth and bone pathologies. Find the model here: www.graysvertebrateanatomy.com/veiled-chame...

Say hello to Florida's newest established species, Typhlonectes natans - the Rio Cauca Caecilian! You can read about their relative abundance, distribution, & natural history, in our brand new paper: journals.ku.edu/reptilesanda... Here is one individual I CT scanned that had 7 babies inside!

It's #WorldSnakeDay so here is a green tree python I CT scanned for #oVertTCN 🐍 Get the datasets (both #diceCT and regular CT) on MorphoSource: www.morphosource.org/concern/biol... 💚💚💚

Now Jaimi Gray is up! "The Diffusion Diaries: Using diffusible iodine-bases contrast-enhanced Computed Tomography for High-throughout imaging of 3D anatomy of natural history specimens" #JMIH25 #ASIHin3D

Catch me at 10.30am in the Science in 3D #ASIHin3D symposium at #JMIH25 today! Amphibians 🐸 Reptiles 🦎 CT scanning ☢️ Iodine 🧪 Anatomy 🧠

#ASIHin3D begins! An absolute banger line up of speakers today (including me @ 10.30). LET'S GO 🥳 #JMIH25

"Early bird gets the sperm" direct quote by @drscanley.bsky.social during Katherine Greenwald's amazing keynote on unisexual salamanders... And so #JMIH25 begins

Alert for those also arriving to St Paul for #JMIH25 on very little sleep and are also into sharks (I think there's a few of you 😉), the Lost Fox has a very strong coffee option called the "Hammerhead".... 🦈

En route to the Twin Cities MN for #JMIH2025 ✈️ I'm bringing plenty of stickers for y'all so you have an excuse to hit me up and talk fish and herps 🐟🐢🐠🐡🐸🦎🐍🐊 Catch my talk in the #ASIHin3D symposium on Saturday...

I used my 3D printer to create educational anatomical models of the brains of fish, frog, & lizard 🐟🐸🦎 The (color-blind friendly) colors demonstrate anatomical regions, and the 🧠 are many times larger than their real size. They can be removed from their stands for closer examination/comparison 🧪

Who are those sweet slippery noodles with tiny eyes? Caecilians of course! 🥰 I imaged these limbless amphibs for #oVertTCN using #diceCT to enhance the contrast of the soft tissues. You can find the datasets on MorphoSource with the other diceCT amphibians: www.morphosource.org/projects/000... 🧪

Can we just take a moment to appreciate turtle skeletons? 🐢🦴🤯 The original model of this gopher tortoise skeleton on Sketchfab (skfb.ly/ooVZS) is a crowd favorite & I've received requests for a downloadable version lately, so I uploaded a new one to MorphoSource: www.morphosource.org/concern/medi...

Glad to see Vera et al. lead the way for 3D data sharing in Aus. I hope that Ozboneviz 🦴 shows great things that can happen when you share 3D data FAIR-ly. After working on oVert & seeing it be an amazing thing for US collections, it's somewhat poetic that this paper comes from my home state of SA 🥰

The result of three years’ worth of travel through Australia’s museum collections and three Universities, and heaps of help from the MorphoSource and oVert Teams @jaimiagray.bsky.social :

Decided there's not enough lizards in the #ColorsOfSkullAnatomy collection 🦎 So, new to the gang: Phyllurus platurus (southern leaf tail gecko). An Aussie lizard of course, and one of the 1st specimens I scanned at Florida Museum in 2021 www.graysvertebrateanatomy.com/leaftail-gecko-skull-anatomy/

Had a marvelous time teaching our UTCT bio/paleo short course this week! 3D Slicer and dragonfly, with a hint of Blender and diceCT... Participants are now equipped to go forth and render/segment/measure/analyze their CT data 🤓

Today we welcome our bio/paleo short course participants to UTCT! Three days of CT and data processing, coming right up 💁

And that's a wrap on our NoCTURN 2025 meeting at the @amnh.org 🎉🎉 I'm brimming with pride at all the things we've been able to achieve! Just the most marvelous community (who knows how to have a good time). Look at all the things we did (much more still to come 😉): nocturnetwork.org

ToScA attendees were living it UP on our dinner cruise in New York city 🗽🛥️

Got to stand up at the @amnh.org & tell everyone at ToScA about the #oVertTCN project and some of the fun things it led to... 🐒🦌🐀🦜🐸🦎🐊🐢🐦‍⬛🐟🐍🦔

I had a blast yesterday teaching Slicer in this funky dome at @amnh.org! Thanks to all the attendees for coming along for the ride 🎢🧪

Hey New York!!! Excited to be here at the AMNH for ToScA and NOCTURN meetings this week! Day 1, workshops! I'll see some of you in the 3D Slicer sessions 😎

One of the thousands of vertebrates we scanned for #oVertTCN, funded by NSF. This is Tomistoma schlegelii, the "false gharial" with some brightly colored osteoderms I bejeweled with some pinks and purples🐊 Download the Tomistoma datasets for free here: www.morphosource.org/concern/biol...

For some reason my post from months ago is shooting back up into Bsky feeds. I ❤️ that #oVertTCN is giving a people a little twinkle of joy right now. Being part of it is one of my proudest accomplishments. Some more info (PLZ watch the video): www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/scie...

Feel like we need some ❤️ today so here are some close ups of the 🫀hearts🫀 from the Diffusion Diaries (read it here: doi.org/10.1093/iob/...) 1. 🦇 Schneider's leaf nosed bat 2. 🐟 bowfin 3. 🐸 midwife toad 4. 🦎 collared lizard

IOB- The Diffusion Diaries: "Diffusible iodine-based contrast-enhanced CT (#diceCT) is commonly used to create three-dimensional (#3D) rep- resentations of the soft tissue #anatomy of preserved #vertebrate specimens." @jaimiagray.bsky.social et al doi.org/10.1093/iob/... #morphology #taxonomy

IOB fresh ink this week! @jaimiagray.bsky.social et al's The Diffusion Diaries: Diffusible Iodine-Based Contrast-Enhanced Computed #Tomography for #Vertebrate Natural History #Specimens Gray, Sheehy, Blackburn et al doi.org/10.1093/iob/... & see www.graysvertebrateanatomy.com/about/

🚨New publication alert!🚨 A big one! It might just be my *biggest* one: doi.org/10.1093/iob/... IMPORTANT THREAD! From the moment Dave Blackburn set me loose at the Florida Museum, I had a marvelous time using diffusible iodine-based contrast-enhanced CT (diceCT) to create anatomical datasets 🧪1/6

Hey it's international bat appreciation day 🦇 Here's a rendering of a skeleton of a Daubenton's free tailed bat I scanned for #oVertTCN. This AMNH specimen was collected in the Congo in 1910! This poor girl has quite a few broken bones 😢 See if you can spot them www.morphosource.org/media/000519...

When I CT scanned this diamondback rattlesnake specimen, I found a surprise rodent inside 🐍🐁 The #oVertTCN CT data is available for download on MorphoSource here: www.morphosource.org/concern/medi...

Every year UTCT teaches NSF sponsored short courses on high-resolution X-ray CT, taught by UTCT staff (including me!). Applications for the 2025 courses are now open! See below for the biological/paleontological course info, & we also have a geological one. If you'd like to apply, send me a DM 🩻☢️🦴

ECHINODERM JOB! Collection Manager at the Los Angeles County Museum! workforcenow.adp.com/mascsr/defau... more on the LACM collection here: nhm.org/research-col...

Attending ToScA in New York this year? I'm teaching a 3D Slicer workshop on day 1! Places limited so if you want a spot: run, don't walk to ToScA's registration page 🏃‍♀️ If 3DSlicer isn't for you, there are sessions for other segmentation/recon software www.toscainternational.org/toscana25/wo...

merry fishmas 🐟